Big Kindles

JonathanRyan

JonathanRyan

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I read a lot of tech books and am fed up of filling a shelf with them. I love my Kindle and find I read books a lot more on it than I do on paper. But.....reading tech books on a 6 inch screen is far from fun. So I thought I'd buy a big Kindle. But they don't exist (I mean an actual Kindle using e-ink because it's *far* better to read than a tablet).

So my choices are.....
  1. Carry on buying books on dead trees and filling a shelf with them.
  2. Get a Boyue Likebook P10 (crazy name, crazy solution)
  3. Get a cheap 10 inch tablet and hope it's good enough. Best value 10 inch is probably the Kindle Fire.
So does anybody read tech books (with code, diagrams, flow charts etc) on an eReader? What do you have? Is a Kindle Fire good enough or is there something better? (Likebooks are around £250 so it has to be less than that) Or are you one of the brave souls with a Likebook?

(BTW I'm aware that the Remarkable 2 in the classifies would probably work pretty well - more than I need for more than I want to pay...)
 
iPad works for me.

I started replacing technical books with PDFs about 15 years ago, keeping them on a HP convertable. When that failed in 2011 and couldn't be repaired, I was handed the original iPad as a free replacement under the maintainance agreement. About 5 years ago my wife donated her iPad Air to me and I've been using that ever since.
 
Yes iPads do have great screens and decent battery life. But their price is terrifying :)

Are you using the original air? They are more affordable.
 
I have a Linx 12.5" tablet with keyboard cover that I picked up a couple of years ago to use for music instead of endless printed copies. 1080p screen, crisp & clear, many hours of battery. Its pretty slow now, but for pdf files that doesn't matter. Paid less than £100.
 
How about a KindleDX? Those are ~A4 size. Only gettable secondhand and may not open all formats of documents that a modern kindle would...
 
You could get a 10" Onyx Note 2 if you have a spare £450-500

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hunnymonster said:
How about a KindleDX? Those are ~A4 size. Only gettable secondhand and may not open all formats of documents that a modern kindle would...
Click to expand...

Thanks - yes once upon a time Amazon made big Kindles..... Unfortunately too many compromises with them - not least the lack of WiFi. Amazon are currently trying to get everyone in the US with a non WiFi Kindle to trade it in as they will soon stop working.
Steep said:
You could get a 10" Onyx Note 2 if you have a spare £450-500

​

Click to expand...

I've looked long and hard at the Boox Note Air which I think would be even better for my purpose than a Note 2. But as you say, it's the price of last year's flagship tablets.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Thanks - yes once upon a time Amazon made big Kindles..... Unfortunately too many compromises with them - not least the lack of WiFi. Amazon are currently trying to get everyone in the US with a non WiFi Kindle to trade it in as they will soon stop working.
Click to expand...
I had one of the original Kindles which had wi-fi. I didn't know non wi-fi Kindles existed.
 
for technical books I find PDF’s are the best format. they are quick to navigate, and the highlight and annotate functions make them preferable to epub. Re the price of iPads, I bought a new iPad Air for 350 and would expect it to last me around 5 years. It replaced an original air which I bought late 2013. It had updates to the latest iOS for 6 years, though felt sluggish towards the end. So approx £5 per month.
 
Rapscallion said:
for technical books I find PDF’s are the best format. they are quick to navigate, and the highlight and annotate functions make them preferable to epub. Re the price of iPads, I bought a new iPad Air for 350 and would expect it to last me around 5 years. It replaced an original air which I bought late 2013. It had updates to the latest iOS for 6 years, though felt sluggish towards the end. So approx £5 per month.
Click to expand...
That's a good way of looking at it. Though for context, I'm reading novels on a 10+ year old Kindle that cost me 20 quid :)

Currently looking at a second hand Samsung tablet. I think it would fit into my Android / PC ecosystem better than an iPad.
 
Just in case anybody stumbles across this looking for advice on big Kindles.....

I looked long and hard at the BooX range. Gorgeous kit but it would have cost me £400+ for a dedicated e-Reader from an unknown manufacturer. I *very* nearly bought a Huawei tablet (their current deals are ridiculous flagship tablet for £450 with free keyboard and pen AND £150 cashback....) but then I wandered into John Lewis and saw the current generation of Samsungs which are fabulous tablets.

I bought a second hand S7 from Cex for about the price of a Huawei. A lot of money for an eReader but it's a great tablet - tethered to my phone I can play Gears 5 on it over 4G :) And back to its "real" use, Moon+ reader does everything I want for reading PDFs.

TL;DR: there are no big Kindles because tablets are so good and big e-ink screens are much more expensive than big LCDs.
 
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